Many of you remember and saw the 'Rocky' movies, which had their base in Kensington, and where our hero, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) was a scuffling fighter, who worked as a 'collection man' or 'head breaker' for bookies in order to keep a roof over his head and food on the table. Rocky, however, had the heart of a lion and a heart of gold, and with help from friends and sometimes fickle fate, overcame his situation and became world champ. It was a fictional 'tear jerker' that pulled out all the stops.

Real life in Kensington today is more and we don't have any 'Rocky Balboas' around. Instead we have sociopathic killers like the 'Kensington Strangler', a human piece of shit who used to take money from vulnerable girls who liked to do heroin, made like he was going to 'cop' for them, then pocket the money, come back to their house, rape and murder them, and then dump the bodies in a vacant lot.

The body of Nicole Piacentini (left) was discovered on November 13. Right, a composite sketch of the suspect. (Photos: NBC 10; Philadelphia Police Department)

Heroin is a very big problem in Kensington, but worse than that is the misery and hopelessness that fuels the trade. Heroin trade used to be run by Puerto Ricans in Philly, but now Dominicans run it, and launder money through a plethora of 'Mom & pop' groceries, or bodegas that they have taken over during the last decade. They are quite well organized, they pay city taxes through their groceries, and operate with the approval of city authorities.

In Philadelphia, I have first hand knowledge of the situation, just from living in various 'hoods',and even wrote a long letter to a reporter from local newspaper giving him the story. He was not interested, as the Dominicans work with cops and city officials who will not move on this because the stores pay tax into a shriveling tax base.

Now, the Dominicans who run the stores themselves are mostly poor 'campesino' types who work very long hours, keep clean store. But, they all under Dominican mob, and do what mob say, so if a shipment come in, they let them use the store as drop off...Shipment comes packed with food items, like case of Goya canned goods...Cops don't bother them because they don't let dealers operate out of stores.

If store owner makes store profitable, or co-operates with right people, he can get 'points' in store ownership...But you will notice that these stores change their names every 10 months to year, the mob move people in and out.

Prompted by reports that a group of narcotics officers took thousands in cash and merchandise from mom-and-pop stores during raids, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey last night assured Dominican community leaders and merchants that he will stand tough against misconduct.

"Corruption of any kind will not be tolerated in this department, period," Ramsey said. "And those who engage in it are going to face charges both from the department as well as criminal charges." (Unless you are a city official or police commissioner...Frank D.)

Immediately, loud applause broke out in the crowd at the Hunting Park church.

"That's the language the community needed to hear," Danilo Burgos, president of the city's 300-member Dominican Grocers Association, said after the meeting.

http://articles.philly.com/2009-06-17/news/24985422_1_police-officers-raids-task-forceWhat happen here is this: Police know bodegas are used for heroin and cocaine...Cops, especially Euro-American (White) cops get frustrated because Blacks running city and police let this go on, so they say 'Well, give me some, too'...But also, the cops mete out 'vigilante justice'...Remember, street cops just cannon fodder...Not too smart, but this is the reality.

Of course, not all of the Dominicans who operate or work in the stores are directly involved in the trade, but what we are dealing with here is a system, a 'Beast'. You want to buy groceries in many 'hoods', you're only choice is these bodegas. Other ethnic Americans abandoned the 'mom & pop' grocery business long ago.

The real 'Beast' that plagues Kensington is the collapse and uprooting of the manufacturing and blue collar jobs that once lined Allegheny Avenue, once the thriving backbone of North Philadelphia's blue collar economy. At one end of Allegheny Avenue, in the East Falls section, you used to have the Budd Company, which built rail cars, trolleys and heavy machinery associated with the transport industry, along with Tastycake, the company that makes the famous Philadelphia snack cakes, pies and cookies. You had Philco, which made every type of appliance from washing machines to TV sets, and you had a plethora of mills/clothing factories that made sweaters, slacks, coats and clothing for the world.

At the other end of Allegheny Avenue, in Port Richmond, you had the busy Port of Philadelphia, which transported these products nation and world wide. Now, for the most part, all of this is gone.

Replacing it you have 'social service organizations' for the unemployed, homeless and damaged. You have cheap Chinese take out joints, dollar stores and, on what used to be an avenue of churches, you find struggling congregations desperate to rent out their facilities to whomever they can find.

It is a sad sight to see the numbers of men who have given up, and spend their days in a stupor of drugs or alcohol, and to see the pregnant young girls, sometimes already pushing another young one in a stroller, actually trying to hustle their bodies, or making their way to the welfare office to make sure their paper are in order so they can collect their check. Marriage is definitely a dying form of social unit with these lost souls.

Whereas in Kensington in the past the going was always a bit rough, you had the glue of family and the church to k\help keep things together. And the faces were White: ethnic Irish, Poles, Germans, Italians who shared, for the most part, a common culture that respected the family and feared God.

Now, the faces are Brown, Black and Yellow, and the only common denominator is the desire to purchase cheap consumer goods like cell phones, and to hustle money wherever it can be found.

This is the general reality, the beast from the Prole's eye view. But, before we abandon all hope, let it be said that some of the churches are still strong, some of the social workers do actually care, and, amazingly, the lessons from the Gospel still reach more than a handful.

As they say in AA & NA (Narcotics Anonymous) 'one day at a time'. Because, you see, for most on the ground down here, one can only put one foot in front of the other and keep on going, because, in this world, for these people, there are no promises. This is the world that the scum on Wall Street never see, the world that Washington DC has completely forgotten. Hell, our Congress allows the bodies of Vets killed in our criminal adventures overseas to be tossed in landfills and calls it a 'burial'. It is the gangsters who have brought us to this point who need to be buried.